S.W. Welch: The Nikolski Coincidence

S.W. Welch: The Nikolski Coincidence

Just last week a fellow translator mentioned the CBC's annual Canada Reads literary competition. She told me that the winner, Nikolski, was penned by Quebec writer Nicolas Dickner and translated by another Quebecer, Lazer Lederhendler. I was impressed because I had heard that both Ann-Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees and Wayson Choy's The Jade Peony were in the running, and these were two books that I adored.

The next day, after dropping off my circa-1975 pink bike at the repair shop on Bernard, I popped in at the S.W. Welch used bookstore on St. Viateur. I have never actually gone into this store and left empty-handed, but this day looked as though it was going to be an exception. As usual, I had a chat with the owner and told him that I had visited his facebook page where he regularly posts a stack of his new arrivals. I was surprised by this undertaking, as the owner has openly expressed his opposition in the past to any kind of online book sales.

Just as I was about to leave, a 1994 bell hooks classic caught my eye, and then right next to it, I spotted what appeared to be a brand new copy of Nikolski.

"Someone just mentioned this book the other day," I said to the owner, as I flipped through it, looking for underlined words or the particularly abhorrent doodling in the margins. Then I noticed a note in red pen.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Oh, the translator, Lazer Lederhendler, signed that copy. He comes in here sometimes. He also translated that book," said the owner, pointing to a book by Gaétan Soucy on the shelf behind me.
"You'll also see that the book refers to my bookshop when we were on the Main, but the author changed the name to S.W. Gam," he said.

This was not a hard sell by any means, but I still found the price, $10.00, a little steep for a used book. But the coincidence won me over, and I was anxious to see how the bookstore had been immortalized.

The former digs on St-Laurent Boulevard were older, stuffier, dustier and a little less organized than the current location, but it nonetheless had its charm. From the street, one would invariably see a fat cat sleeping in the front window, and the owner sitting behind the cash with his head tilted back to make optimal use of his bifocals. For many, the cat was the main attraction, much to the owner's annoyance. He eventually put a stop to all question's related to the minutiae of the cat's life by posting a terse FAQ in capital letters and taping it to the front window. It answered all the commonly asked cat-related questions and warded off any future inquiries.

When S.W. Welch first moved to St. Viateur, I asked him how his new location compared to the old.
"Well, business was brisker, but at least there aren't any panhandlers coming in here with $20.00 in nickels and asking for two tens," he said.

Yes, I couldn't agree more. The difference in neighbourhoods, which are a 20-minute walk apart, is like comparing apples and oranges. Business may have been brisker, but the quality of books has improved tremendously.

In Nikolski, the bookstore owner is not a man, but a woman, Mme. Dubeau, who incidentally is a woman Dickner thanks by name at the end of his book for her merciless review of his grant application. S.W. Gam is the place of employment of one of the book's three main characters who are all tenuously tied by common DNA. Dickner makes no mention of the cat or the dust, but instead focuses on the sheer volume of books.

The S.W. Gam Bookshop is one of those places where humans long ago relinquished any control over matter. Every shelf holds three layers of books, and the floorboards would vanish altogether under the dozens of cardboard boxes, but for the narrow, serpentine paths designed to let customers move about. The slightest cranny is put to good use: under the percolator, between the furniture and the walls, inside the toilet tank, under the suitcase, even the dusty closeness of the attic.

Now, there are more than a few passing references to the S.W. Gam bookstore in Nikolski and some other Montreal landmarks, such as the Shamrock fish store at the Jean-Talon Market, but I won't spoil the book for any of you who, like me, enjoys visiting actual places that live on forever in the pages of bestsellers.

FYI, I will be giving this copy, signed by the translator, to the first person who either signs up for an e-mail subscription to my blog or who leaves a meaningful* comment in the comments section. Winner to be announced FRIDAY, MARCH 26.

*Meaningful means potentially leading to a discussion.

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